The End of the World Party
by llivla
Summary: Sai pokes at the land mine that is Uchiha Sasuke. “I understand why you avenged your clan. If someone had killed Naruto-kun in front of my eyes…” he paused as the temperature immediately plummeted thirty degrees, “I’d avenge him, too."
1. Sai's Woeful Analysis of Teenage Love

Sai's Woeful Analysis of Teenage Love

Summary: One-shot time skip to post manga. The Akatsuki have been defeated—_Itachi_ was defeated, and…everyone…even the Snake…go to Kohona. But not for long. Sai reflects…and metaphorically acts like a kid poking a landmine stick. The landmine stick that is Uchiha Sasuke.

Warnings: spoilers galore if you haven't read the manga; major angst for the poor ship that is Sasuke x Naruto

--------------------------------------------

"And…with the damage done to Naruto's soul from having the Kyuubi possess him so often over the years…it's not like he'd going to be living for too long as it is. He puts up a good fight, but the strain on his body is weakening him the same time it heals him. Not that it's any of my business, of course. ...Or yours."

_After all…your bond is _only_ the core of everything we go through. It always…comes back to you. _

"I mean, come on…Sasuke-_kun,_" he said brightly. "You even recruited a flower-named girl who fawned over you." And from what he heard from a sniggering Suigetsu, Sasuke ignored each of her advances… "But I'm getting ahead of myself."

"The thing is," Sai said with a fake smile as he sat down a few feet away next to Sasuke, "I don't blame you in the slightest for what you did!"

"…"

Sai smiled wider in the pleasant night.

Sai had found their desperation, hope, and even fear, catching these past few months, during the fight against the Akatsuki. He got caught so caught up in this ultimate showdown against the nins or, more specifically, Itachi, and them, and then there was, of course, Sasuke.

And his "Snake" band of team members that were undeniably violent and insane even by Sai's flexible standards.

They had set out to find Sasuke first, but the Akatsuki had found them instead.

In the end…they won. Jiraiya had… died in the takedown of "Leader" Akatsuki. Kiba was still in critical condition beating his own demons in an explosive fight. Kakashi lost his normal eye. People Sai had not known of before choosing to stay with Team Seven that nevertheless quickly fired something inside of him as they approached and fought amongst each other. It made him feel…alive, to see them in pain in a morbid sense, as curious emotions shot powerfully through his body. It must be those _bonds_…

He had not seen the showdown against Itachi, he had been too distracted with Hinata by "Swamp Thing Copyright Infringement" and all that intercepted them while tracking down...whoever (Itachi? Sasuke? Which was it, Naruto?). All he saw briefly was a guy with a weird orange mask boxing the blond in at the top of a hill, and when he tried to move to help, Shark Man's stupid sucking sword blocked him back as Itachi swept past. When he looked again Naruto was gone.

It wasn't going so well.

And then, of course, Sasuke came. He wasted no time leaving his team members to deal with the Akatsuki members while he followed his brother's trail. When it was all over, himself and Suigetsu trying to best the other with perverted comments while kicking dead bodies, Sasuke and Naruto appeared over the hill. Three feet apart, looking down at them, not touching. Both worse for wear, bloody…and quiet. Naruto looked uncomfortable, Sasuke looked unimpressed.

Naruto stared at the ground while everyone looked at him expectantly, too tired to ask what had happened, and Kiba muttered how they should get going, and everyone moved but Naruto and Sasuke. And Sai, but he was a master of not being noticed, and he did not want to be noticed while Naruto and Sasuke regarded each other without fully meeting eyes.

Sasuke had looked at Naruto, and said intently two words Sai had never expected to hear in that order: "You lead."

Naruto had stared at him, with those blue eyes older and younger and more vulnerable and stronger than any sixteen year old should look, and then gave a tentative smile. "Yeah."

So finally after three years, Naruto fulfilled his promise, his desire that had consumed him more than becoming Hokage ever had: shoulder to shoulder and silent, Sasuke came back with him to Kohona. It all seemed like the ending was coming, yes? Sasuke's team was extra, it would all be sorted soon?

But Sai found that what he read was true: that nothing gold can stay, and sure enough time wielded two completely contradictory statements from the infamous duo:

Now that Akatsuki, now that _Itachi_, was dead, Naruto wanted things to go back to the way they were.

Sasuke coldly told him that he was _done_ with the way things were. And as soon as Shino's body was buried, and Tsunade healed Juugo's raging mind, he was leaving.

This tension boiled into a small public fight, which Naruto quickly stopped himself, to Sasuke's shockingly visible surprise over his withdrawing chokuto. Naruto just stepped back from powering his rasengan, and when he looked up with his face so exhausted and too old for his age, and he just softly, tiredly said, "You know what? I…I can't anymore. Whatever you want… Sasuke." And then he dropped his shoulders, lowered his head, turned and left.

To which Sai had observed the Uchiha watch him walk away with an unreadable expression, saw Karin try to approach Sasuke with no acknowledgment to her existence, and so also with Suigetsu's snort at the brat's cowardice. Then quicker than the eye could track he was twenty feet from them, and then turned to walk off in the opposite direction, Sakura staring after him.

To which Sai had been strolling after the library closing at ten to sense Sasuke's chakra nearby from the others. Okay, so going until he was _miles_ into open country so there was no one else for miles until he _could_ sense Sasuke's chakra might not constitute as 'strolling,' but that was besides the point.

He realized this person wouldn't hesitate from killing him using only his eyes if pushed too far, but Sai had a feeling everything he was saying was paradoxically also what Sasuke wanted to hear. And, Sai was probably the only person in Kohona to support his leaving to try and kill his brother.

"No…I don't blame you." He repeated with that same breezy arrogance and fake smile.

There was no reply.

"Don't you want to know why?"

"No."

Sai closed his eyes and smiled wider and the sky, hands behind his head. "Well, I mean, if someone had killed _Naruto_ in front of my eyes…" he smirked inwardly as the temperature immediately plummeted thirty degrees, "Well, I'd go and abandon everything else to avenge him, too."

A lesser nin would have run screaming at the intent hitting Sai right then, the hairs on the back of his neck were screaming themselves at what the _fuck_ he was doing just sitting there, but Sai pressed it down and waited.

"…Oh," Sasuke said finally, icily, looking at him dangerously out the corner of his eye. "Would you…?"

"Uhuh!" Sai said brightly, ignoring the memory flash of about thirty tons worth of dynamite the last time this person's _chakra_ had been annoyed. He let the silence stretch out, smirking inside while he was certain the Uchiha was trying to figure out how to kill him so Naruto wouldn't know about it.

He let it stretch on until he sensed the other's jaw unclench, let Sasuke think it was over…before he attacked again. "Now, if someone killed _you_ in front of Naruto on the other hand…"

Sasuke's aura shot up to a lethal degree as he…slowly…faced Sai. But Sai paid him no attention as he laughed lightly at the sky. "Yup, that's a wild card right there!"

He looked and saw Sasuke staring at him cryptically. Like everyone else, Sai couldn't ever tell what the Uchiha was thinking when he withdrew his emotions from his eyes. Naruto was the only one…or the only one stupidly brilliant enough to just outright ask him. A true smile twitched to overpass his lying one, but Sai fought it down. If by asking one meant by literally trying to pummel it out of him. Apparently Sasuke was still legendarily private with his thoughts and emotions, to the point of paranoia.

Sai was trying hard not to grin, waiting…

"A wild card." Sasuke finally repeated, his voice giving nothing away.

_Gotcha. _"Aren't you going to ask me how?" He said, fake-smiling with his teeth.

_No_, the deadly look on his face said icily. Sai tried not to laugh, bringing his arms to rest on his knees. Though there were no muscles in Sasuke's neck or back to give away his tension—his training had erased the ability for that—but Sasuke had apparently forgotten, or assumed that Sai would not notice, that the Uchiha's hands had retreated into his sleeves when he folded them. Sai would have bet his sketchbook they were in fists imagining Sai's neck in them for not just spitting it out, for talking about Naruto, for talking about Naruto in an intimate, knowing fashion...

"You see on one hand, he'd go completely ape shit. Scream to the heavens. Lose his sanity. Tear the poor idiot to pieces. You know, the usual, but more, since the last time was only because that Orochimaru _mocked_ you. Since you actually _died _in this hypothetical universe it might actually, you know, be dramatic or something." The air now additionally cackled with electricity, maybe an activated Sharignan, but Sai ignored it. He smiled. "Naruto'd probably bring them back to life and do it again. He'd melt their eyeballs, twist up their intestines from their mouth, completely sell his soul to the demon for a tenth of a second chance; all that heroic stuff you weird people find so romantic." He opened his eyes, expression and tone changing as he finally looked at Sasuke. "However…"

"…"  "…"

_I've got you, Sasuke-kun, you're listening to me... _

Now he could say what he'd kept quiet for a while now.   "If there's one thing Naruto worries about, it's how much of a toll your quest has taken on you. He knows the loss of your parent's love so suddenly and so violently ruined you, consumed you like any child would. How tired you've both become. How much you've been forced to grow up too soon. How lonely you've been, because Naruto said that was what brought you together in the first place. And, if you had been killed, in Naruto's eyes, that would be kind of like…a release. Freedom from all that hate. From all that anger. Like it was all an ocean and you weren't drowning anymore. You could finally just stop fighting and…sleep." Sai lowered his gaze. "So, he wouldn't avenge you. Because if he did, Naruto would feel guilty, if the price was keeping your memory still here. Keeping your soul here. Keeping you from resting and seeing your family again, who you've been fighting for, for twelve years…Naruto would never want that to happen."

"To let you go, to let your soul move on and rest," He watched Sasuke's face intently. "He respects, _cares_ enough about you to give you that."

"…" There was no change in the expression across from him, or even any evidence that he'd been paying attention and taken in a word of his eloquent soliloquy. Sai shifted back to comfortably take in the starry sky, wondering if he would find that shooting star Sakura and Naruto had whispered about once. Moments passed into minutes, but still no reaction, just those purposely blank, dead eyes Sai used to have, before Naruto pummeled it out of him. That Sasuke always had, unless Naruto was in his face. Then they were so full of anger and bitterness and familiarity of _those_ emotions Sai read about he wanted to take a quick picture of and prove it to the world he was not hallucinating.

Sai didn't move from his grassy seat as suddenly the other smoothly rose to his feet and began to walk away, not even the grass making a sound to prove it.

"You know what else?" Sai called to the moon loudly so the Uchiha could hear. His real smile came out when he sensed the retreating figure pause, but not turn around. "I think that the reason you told Naruto you can't stay isn't because you want things to be less than what they were." He smiled over his shoulder fearlessly in the dark. "It's because you want more, isn't it?"

There was silence.

"Poor Karin."

"..."

And then Sasuke's aura was gone.

Sai let out a small breath he'd been holding, looking down and playing with a stray blade of grass. _Bonds…_

Ninjas weren't the healthiest of people to be known for normal things like marriage—look at Kakashi-san, heck, look at the Uchiha clan. The darkness of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship wasn't the problem.

It was that their preferences were otherwise straight…asexual…whatever. And Naruto wouldn't _be_ Naruto if he wasn't male. Sai's smile turned to a pained grimace. Sasuke just didn't give a shit about petty things like that, just as long as they made an impression.

Sai was new to this emotion thing, but he was nothing if not quick, and he knew the signs of the underneath the underneath of Sasuke and Naruto.

It was why Sasuke reacted as he did when Sai first met him, and when Naruto had shown up…why Sasuke touched him; and it was also why he didn't return after killing Orochimaru. It was why he formed his own team and put his humanity in a tight lock at the abyss of his soul. It was why even after Itachi was dead and Sasuke said "you lead" and Naruto ran to his side crying and screaming that he was such a bastard and moving to embrace him…that Sasuke had retreated until Naruto could not do so, and kept him at a distance even now.

It was why, Sai was amused to find when he was about a mile from the Kohona gates, there was a tree. Not just any tree. A poor, defenseless, tall and tired cypress that probably didn't deserve the shattering punch into it's midsection that had split it sharply in half.

Sai put his hands in his pockets, closing his eyes and smiling truer and wider at the entire scene beyond the poor tree immediately in front of him. The clump of twenty or so trees behind it that had collapsed or exploded from the ensuing aura of Sasuke's temper probably hadn't deserved that either.

--------------------------------------------

_You're in love with him, aren't you? Someone as lonely and angry as you..._

_But you loved Itachi too and look where that wound up. So...you're very much afraid aren't you? And we're all still so young we'll screw it up no matter how we do it. _

--------------------------------------------

I love Sai. He cracks me up. I killed Shino—WOE. Kishimoto's going to have to kill somebody, so I was trying to be realistic.

I'm not done with Karin. I have a major 'OMG' moment boiling between her and an oblivious Naruto. Eventually.


	2. In Their Shoes

Title: In Their Shoes

Summary: Sakura wants Ino to back off Sasuke-kun when he returns to Konoha. Ino wants to know why the hell Sakura would approve... 'it.' Post Manga. 800 words.

Pairings: Eh...subtext. Not just between Naruto and Sasuke--Naruto and Sakura too. And Ino and Sakura if you want (lord know there's enough of that in the manga too xD).

------

"I don't see why what I do is any of your business, Forehead Girl!"

Ino stomped heavily into the store, Sakura trailing in behind her, quiet since her heavy statement a few moments ago.

Ino was pissed, no, _beyond _pissed. There she had been, about to hug Sasuke-kun like she had when they were children (she had seen Sakura standing by him and Naruto), when _Sakura_ had intercepted her, grinningly grabbed her arm, and said she had something to tell her before dragging her away.

And, apparently, it was that under no cicrumstances was she to come near Sasuke-kun with dreams of dates and romance. There had been no hysterical undertone in her voice like their insane fights over the boy usual carried--she had been, Ino thought, almost _hatefully_ serious.

Behind her, Sakura pursed her lips to keep her famous temper down. It was a warning look that would have sent Naruto hiding in the bread aisle ("Sakura-chan's afraid of carbs!" He tried to explain to Ino, Suigetsu, and Sasuke's disbelieving faces when they found him there after forty-two hours straight), had Sai switching places with an ink doll, or any other just backing away slowly, but Ino looked away uncaring. "So yeah," she snapped, "explain that to me since you followed me in here." She narrowed her eyes, "Being as you never come in here anymore as it is. Why should I do what you say!"

"Because," Sakura said quietly. Or maybe it just seemed that way after Ino's loudness, "Because you're interfering with the time they have right now. I can't fight off both you and Karin, Ino."

"Peh!" Ino said haughtily. "Sasuke-kun and Naruto, Sasuke-kun and Naruto! They're together all the time now! You need a crow bar to get Naruto away from Sasuke-kun! And when Sasuke-kun isn't with his mental-hospital escape group of crazies he's around Naruto too!"

""Sasuke-kun just killed his _broth_--"

"He was a complete psycho-maniac! Who wouldn't want to kill him? It's..." Ino sucked in her breath and glared as she spun around. "It's almost like you _like_ them acting like a couple of gay boys!"

Sakura flinched at the harshness of that voice, but held her ground. She lowered her head. "..."

Ino snorted and turned her back on her. She lifted up the slab of wood to get behind the counter, pulled out a vase and began to arrange around it. She wasn't sure what she was mad at exactly--if it was being told 'no' or that it was _Sakura_ who told her no. She narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth, her grip on a forget-me-not nearly making it welt with the faint heat of intent rolling off her body.

And besides, she thought irritably, if she didn't fight with Sakura over Sasuke-kun, what was there to tie them together? Their friendship had never been stable since--

"Ino." Sakura's voice broke in.

Since...

_I don't need you anymore. I stand on my own._

"Ino..."

"Yeah?" Ino said grumpily as she arranged another flower vase to calm herself.

"...I...if what happened to Sasuke-kun and Naruto had happened to you and me, I'd want you all to myself right now too."

Ino's hands stilled.

"We used to be really good friends didn't we?" Sakura pleaded. "I...I looked up to you all the time. You helped me, even when my parents were fighting and I didn't want to keep being a ninja because that was what some of the arguments were about. You told me to keep going, I wasn't lonely and... And I messed up really bad, I _know_ that." She closed her eyes. "Now, _you_ say I'm stronger, and that's because I wanted so badly to protect them. Protect Naruto because I love him so much..." Her voice was shaking, her eyes heavy with a dark memory of something that frightened her. "Protect him from the world, from himself. Because I see myself in him. Because while he was plummeting to hell without Sasuke-kun...I could understand too, what it would be like to lose someone you were determined to keep a rival for pride, afraid to bring them closer to where they could hurt you and admit they meant more..."

She swallowed and looked away, wiping a tear from her eye quickly. "I want them to be safe," she whispered. "I want them to be happy. And I know how to do it..because it's so easy to put myself in their places a little. And right now, Sasuke-kun needs a brother more than ever, after...after Itachi..."

Ino stared, wondering for the thousandth time how someone could be so legendarily strong and still so soft with her heart. Like an undying, persistent flower. "Sakura..."

The black-gloved hand at her side clenched to a fist. She looked at Ino fiercely.

"I will not be useless to them again, I swore that to myself on my very life. So please Ino, stop pursuing Sasuke-kun. I will only ask you once before I show you I'm not kidding when I say I'll do anything for them...

Even if it's you in my way."

Standing behind the counter, Ino couldn't stop her breath from catching at the force and will behind Sakura's eyes. And behind them she saw the pain fostered over years of regret, the maternal instincts Ino herself had lost to bitterness but Sakura continued to foster and give even at the cost of herself. Those feelings she felt for her partners...yes a love for a partner was completely different one felt for a friend, a lover, or family member, if one tried it. What Sakura felt for her partner Naruto...Ino resigned herself to not participating a long time ago now, when Shikamaru had left for Sand after all.

And now...Sakura...Ino had never been more aware that that fist had enough chakra infused there to collapse her entire flower shop in a single punch, or so the hairs on the back of her neck told her.

Huh.

She'd grown in the merciless wild into something more beautiful than anyone could have imagined.

Ino's lips were dry and her heart was hammering, but she knew how to break the silence: "A kajillion bugs."

Sakura blinked. "Huh?"

Ino grinned. "That girl you keep beating away with a stick. With the red hair and the temper when Naruto's around. We should totally have Shino filter a kajillion bugs into her bed."

Sakura blinked again in shock and then her serious expression turned a little shy. "Ah...actually I was just thinking we could first invite her to lunch sometime and...hope she's not so bad since Sasuke-kun _did_ seek her out..."

"And _then_ unleash the bugs?"

"I don't want to start a war with Sasuke-kun's team! You're merciless Ino."

"Only because I'm happy to be fighting with you for something again!" Ino said breezily. "Something important...and something that's just the two of us."

And while those winking blue eyes chattered away about how she would scare Karin off for sure with "A Talk"...Sakura thought of another pair of blues that hadn't been shining like that for years.

_Happy to be fighting with you again._

_Just the two of us._

_"Hey Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted across the street to her merrily as he and Sasuke made their way to the ramen stand after sparring on the training grounds._

Ino's blue eyes in front of her...so happy now...

_"Sasuke-kun means a great deal to Naruto doesn't he?"_

_"Yes Sai, he does."_

_"...I think it goes both ways..."_

_Just...us._

Yeah... she knew someone else who was happy about that too...

And Sakura smiled.

--------

A/N: Sakura's such a yaoi fangirl. She wants the smexy back.

I wasn't originally going to continue this, but this one-shot slid right into the post-manga-verse I was angling for...so...and I've got a few more POV's planned, including Karin (92 percent done), Suigetsu, and a more personal Sakura one as well. Maybe Naruto and Sasuke, but...they're so darned hard!


End file.
